Weekly News – Term 4 | Week 3

The Year 13s have had fun dressing up each day this week. We’ve had double denim, halloween costumes, all pink outfits and pyjama day. The prefects and senior student council members organised a Fun Day for everyone during Tuesday’s lunch hour where the girls were treated to a sausage sizzle and candy floss. It was a beautiful day for everyone to be outside and a great chance for the whole school to come together before seniors commence study leave. It is these moments that give you a real sense of our special character in action, the feeling of belonging and a community that cares.

For seniors, school finishes at 12.30pm on Tuesday. They will have an alternative timetable for the morning where they will be briefed on NZQA procedures, prefect voting will take place and the Year 13s will head to St Paul’s for a run through of the Leavers Service. The first NCEA examinations take place on Thursday and we wish all of our students well for these.

Year 10 examinations are being held on Monday and Tuesday of next week. The girls have been preparing for these and I am sure they will take this opportunity to demonstrate some of the key learning they have done over the year.

We held a successful Blues Evening last week where we awarded Cultural, Service and Sporting Blues, along with our newly created Sport Excellence and SHCS Sport Awards. We were treated to wonderful performances from the Kapa Haka group, Adithi Alexander, Helen Knott and Maddie Guthrie. There are videos of the performances on the school Facebook page – make sure you check them out! The full list of prize recipients has been published here.

Curiosity Week

In Week 5, 13th – 17th November the Year 7 – 9 students will be exploring their curiosity as part of a curiosity project. They will consider what things they have always wanted to know about, what makes them curious and what they can do about that curiosity.

As part of this we would love to have a number of people from our wider community share short (five minute) stories about where curiosity has taken them. This sharing time would be at the beginning of each day. There are no rules to this it could be when curiosity led to an unexpected career or it could have been a moment when curiosity led to a journey or perhaps an unexpected activity.

If this sounds like you or you are curious to know more please get in touch with me at jmaw@shcs.school.nz.

A reminder that our canteen is closing today. With the canteen premises being unavailable due to NCEA examinations we will not be operating a canteen from November 6 until the end of term.

Tolcarne News

The week started off with a few nervous Year 12 students delivering their Head Boarder speeches at dinner, they all confidently spoke about what they would bring to Tolcarne as a Head Boarder. This was also our last Tribe dinner and Grendon, who won the Tribe games on Saturday, was also first place getter overall – taking out the 2017 Tribe Title!

The hostel was busy buying Secret Santa presents and Stella and Izzy were organising their speeches for the Christmas and Leavers dinner. Jodie and her team presented the most beautiful Christmas dinner, which we all enjoyed.

Our Year 13s had tears and laughter as they reflected on their five years at Tolcarne. This dinner is such a special moment for everyone at Tolcarne and the atmosphere is of connectedness, celebration and fun.

Student Achievement

Zara Anthony-Whigham and Temple Flaws competed at the National Young Performer Awards. Zara was one of only three Soloist Modern dancers from Otago who was awarded a nomination (competing in Jazz and Contemporary) from a total of 77 competitors nationally and Zara and Temple were in the only Dance Troupe from Otago who were awarded a nomination , from a total of 42 Troupes nationally. Their contemporary troupe from Meenan Dance Centre performed a piece called It’s Not Okay and won the Potential Award.

Phoebe Aburn competed in the annual St Clair Surf Life Saving White Island Race over Labour weekend, placing first in the Under 19 board race as well as being named second female overall.

Olivia O’Neill has been called into the Women’s Touch Blacks Squad in preparation for the Trans Tasman Touch Championships in 2018.

Josie Cook and Gabby Hunter have been selected to row in an Otago University quad competing in Guangzhou and Wuhan in China in December.

Year 7 girls Ella Southby and Laura Ring have been selected to attend a New Zealand Basketball National Talent Camp in April next year.